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#WorldSBK Racing in Asia

The WorldSBK Championship has run one tenth of its races in Asia: 76 out of 722.

Asia has been present on the WorldSBK calendar since its first season in 1988, and then continued to be included every year until 2003. The only years without Asian races were 2004 and from 2010-2012.

2015 and 2016 set the new record for races run in Asia in a single season, 6, over the Buriram, Sepang and Losail race weekends.

Sugo in Japan holds the record for most WorldSBK races run: 32, followed by Losail (16) and Sentul (8).

The most successful riders in Asia belong to the nineties: Carl Fogarty won there seven times (2 in Johor, 2 in Sugo and 3 in Sentul), followed by Doug Polen (6) and Raymond Roche (4). Jonathan Rea reached this elite last year, as he has won four times so far in Asia.

Ducati is the most successful manufacturer in Asia, with 26 wins, followed by Kawasaki at 14 and Honda at 11.

Ducati have won at six of the eight Asian tracks: Johor, Losail, Sentul, Sepang, Shah Alam and Sugo. Missing from this list are only Buriram and Istanbul.

Ducati were able to win no less than 11 consecutive races in Asia from Sugo/1 1991 to Sugo/1 1993. At the time Ducati was racing the 888 model, and the riders who won those races were Doug Polen, Raymond Roche and Carl Fogarty. This string was broken by Scott Russell, who won Sugo/2 1993 on his Kawasaki ZXR 750.

14 Asian races have been won by Asian riders, who were all Japanese. 13 of these wins came at their home track, Sugo, with one at Losail (Yukio Kagayama, Losail 2005/2).

The most successful country in Asia is Great Britain, with 22 wins, followed by the United States on 17 and Japan on 14. Both in 2015 and 2016, British riders won 5 of the 6 Asian races. They missed out only in Losail Race 1, 2015 (Jordi Torres, Spain) and in Sepang Race 2, 2016 (Nicky Hayden, United States).

In the last twelve years (2005-2016), the only riders able to take a Ducati to the top step of the podium in Asia are Troy Bayliss (Losail/1 2008) and Chaz Davies (Sepang/2 2015 and a double in Losail last year).

Both in 2015 and in 2016, three different manufacturers were able to win in Asia at least once. In 2015 Kawasaki won 3 races, Aprilia 2 and Ducati 1. Last year Kawasaki won the same three races as the year before (a double in Buriram and Sepang Race 1), while Ducati took the double in Losail and Honda won Sepang Race 2.